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Grade 10: A Talk about Expectations

September 22, 2020

On Tuesday, September 16th, the Assembly of Grade 10 was hosted during P&B time when Raymond Tang from 10(1) was invited to present his talk on expectations.

Raymond approached the topic by first introducing the concept of expectations and listing a few common ones such as getting good grades, receiving distinction in competitions, and other such common goals of most high school students. He interacted with the audience and warmed his listeners up to the rest of his talk. He then went on to exemplify “expectation” in his presentation — Raymond showed a slide with text that promised the audience funny jokes but subverted their expectations with crude puns instead. Though this elicited a couple of laughs and a few groans, he used this example to lead into his main topic which was how one could cope with stressful expectations as well as how to deal with them.

Raymond cited multiple examples of the harms of expectations that go too high, emphasizing the stress and overwhelming pressure badly set expectations may cause. He revealed that the way he has found works best in coping with expectations is to lower them reasonably. He went on to explain his logic, showing how it is more efficient to pursue what one is good at instead of striving towards unrealistic goals, giving the audience a fresh new perspective on the importance of adjusting and personalizing expectations, rather than the rote way of simply trying to be “perfect”. Raymond cited examples from his own life, first reiterating his love for puns as an example of personal preference before giving hypothetical examples of different types of students that could work towards different kinds of expectations.

Raymond concluded his talk with a final message for students to embrace who they are - flaws and all - and to live in accordance to what they enjoy most. He emphasized how important it is to understand onerself. Lastly, he reiterated his advice of setting goals and making plans smartly and reasonably, for it is the true key to success.

(Written by Sarah Liu Pictures by David Ding Supervised by Liu Jialong)